Children's Friend

COUNSELING CENTER

The The Ellsworth Child and Family Counseling Center is the largest program at Children’s Friend. It provides high quality mental health services to children ages 0 – 22 and their families to address a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems, from depression to severe behavioral disorders.

How we can help you
We strive to help families survive difficult times and return to their highest level of functioning. To accomplish this, we work collaboratively with physicians, other mental health and social service providers and schools. We encourage referrals from schools, agencies, hospitals and medical professionals for a wide range of services including individual, group, and family therapy, psychological testing, psychopharmacology, and parent training.

Our clinical staff
Johanna D. Sagarin, Ph.D., licensed psychologist, is the Director of Clinical Services. The professional staff is comprised of licensed psychologists, child psychiatrists, social workers, a clinical nurse specialist, and other mental health clinicians. The clinical staff has expertise in a wide range of diagnostic issues and treatment modalities. The staff combines their years of experience with extraordinary commitment to the mental health of individuals in order to help approximately 300 children and families each week.

Examples of our services
The Ellsworth Child and Family Counseling Center’s highly skilled staff provide treatment for problems such as:

Adoption Issues
Psychoses
Mood Disorders
Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviors
Asperger’s Disorder and other Autism Spectrum Disorders
Trauma History
Adjustment Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
ADHD
Grief
And others

We also offer a wide range of therapeutic groups for children of all ages as well as adults. We are currently offering the following groups:

Social skills groups for children in multiple age ranges who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder.
Social skills groups for children with other diagnoses.
DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) – a full DBT skills training program for adolescents with poor coping skills; the program includes group and individual therapy, parent groups, and telephone consultation.
Other group therapy programs are offered at time to address specific issues; please contact the Ellsworth Center at (508) 753-5425 for more information.

Groups Schedule

Counseling Center Successes and Statistics

The Ellsworth Center helps 250-300 children and family members – and sometimes even more – each week.
Results from a Client Satisfaction Survey about our clinical services consistently show that more than 95% of the people responding agree their children/families have improved as the result of our services.

Contact Us
The Ellsworth Child and Family Counseling Center is located at 20 Cedar Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. Please call us at (508) 753-5425 for more information.

Hours
The Counseling Center is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, and on Saturdays by appointment. A clinician is available to our clients by telephone for after-hours emergencies.

This program receives United Way funding.